We study RG flows between superconformal field theories living in different spacetime dimensions which exhibit universal properties, independent of the details of the UV and IR theories. In particular, when the UV and IR theories are both even-dimensional we establish exact universal relations between their conformal anomaly coefficients. We also provide strong evidence for similar ...

We show how to treat the superconformal algebras with eight Poincaré super-charges in a unified manner for spacetime dimension 2 < d ≤ 6. This formalism is ideally suited for analyzing the quadratic Casimir operator of the superconformal algebra and its use in deriving superconformal blocks. We illustrate this by an explicit construction of the superconformal blocks, for any value ...

We study the partition function of odd-dimensional conformal field theories placed on spheres with a squashed metric. We establish that the round sphere provides a local extremum for the free energy which, in general, is not a global extremum. In addition, we show that the leading quadratic correction to the free energy around this extremum is proportional to the coefficient, C T , ...

We evaluate the partition function of the free O(N ) model on a two-parameter family of squashed three spheres. We also find new solutions of general relativity with negative cosmological constant and the same double squashed boundary geometry and analyse their thermodynamic properties. Remarkably, both systems exhibit a qualitatively similar behaviour over the entire configuration ...

We study supersymmetric intersections of NS5-, D6- and D8-branes in type IIA string theory. We focus on the supergravity description of this system and identify a “near horizon” limit in which we recover the recently classified supersymmetric seven-dimensional AdS solutions of massive type IIA supergravity. Using a consistent truncation to seven-dimensional gauged supergravity we ...

We find a large class of two-dimensional \( \mathcal{N} \) = (0, 2) SCFTs obtained by compactifying four-dimensional \( \mathcal{N} \) = 1 quiver gauge theories on a Riemann surface. We study these theories using anomalies and c-extremization. The gravitational duals to these fixed points are new AdS3 solutions of IIB supergravity which we exhibit explicitly. Along the way we ...

We construct the five-dimensional supergravity dual of the \( \mathcal{N} \) = 1∗ mass deformation of the \( \mathcal{N} \) = 4 supersymmetric Yang-Mills theory on S 4 and use it to calculate the universal contribution to the corresponding S 4 free energy at large ’t Hooft coupling in the planar limit. The holographic RG flow solutions are smooth and preserve four supercharges. As ...

We conjecture that for superconformal field theories in even dimensions, the supersymmetric Casimir energy on a space with topology S 1 × S D−1 is equal to an equivariant integral of the anomaly polynomial. The equivariant integration is defined with respect to the Cartan subalgebra of the global symmetry algebra that commutes with a given supercharge. We test our proposal ...

We study the constraints imposed by superconformal symmetry, crossing symmetry, and unitarity for theories with four supercharges in spacetime dimension 2 ≤ d ≤ 4. We show how superconformal algebras with four Poincaré supercharges can be treated in a formalism applicable to any, in principle continuous, value of d and use this to construct the superconformal blocks for any d ≤ 4. ...

We show that there is a family of two-dimensional (0, 2) SCFTs associated with twisted compactifications of the four-dimensional \( \mathcal{N} \) = 1 Leigh-Strassler fixed point on a closed hyperbolic Riemann surface. We calculate the central charges for this class of theories using anomalies and c-extremization. In a suitable truncation of the five-dimensional maximal ...

We use maximal gauged supergravity in four dimensions to construct the gravity dual of a class of supersymmetric conformal interfaces in the theory on the worldvolume of multiple M2-branes. We study three classes of examples in which the (1+1)-dimensional defects preserve (4, 4), (0, 2) or (0, 1) supersymmetry. Many of the solutions have the maximally supersymmetric AdS 4 vacuum ...

We clarify the structure of the four-dimensional low-energy effective action that encodes the conformal and U(1) R-symmetry anomalies in an \( \mathcal{N} \) = 1 supersymmetric field theory. The action depends on the dilaton, τ, associated with broken conformal symmetry, and the Goldstone mode, β, of the broken U(1) R-symmetry. We present the action for general curved spacetime and ...

We find the gravity dual of \( \mathcal{N} \) = 2* super-Yang-Mills theory on S 4 and use holography to calculate the universal contribution to the corresponding S 4 free energy at large N and large ’t Hooft coupling. Our result matches the expression previously computed using supersymmetric localization in the field theory. This match represents a non-trivial precision test of ...

We construct the first explicit, smooth, horizonless black-hole microstate geometry whose moduli space is described by an arbitrary function of one variable and is thus infinite-dimensional. This is achieved by constructing the scalar Green function on a simple \( {\text{D}}6{ - }\overline {{\text{D}}6} \) background, and using this Green function to obtain the fully back-reacted ...